When we first moved in there were many cockroaches in our apartment. I am not sure if there are bed bugs in our third floor unit but we do get bitten every so often by some kind of bug. My partner thought it might have been spider bites but we are not sure.

For the most part, the landlords are responsive when we have a structural problem with the unit.
However, whenever we've experienced problems with rowdy, loud and inconsiderate tenants, they have not been very good at dealing with

these disputes or conflicts. They simply tell us to call the police.

Also, the elevator has been broken since we moved in and now years later it remains broken. We do not have heat in the winter. They gave us a small, portable heater that we have to use in the cold winter months.

One of the only positive points is that, because the building is so badly inundated with bed bugs, cockroaches, etc, people don't stay very long.
We have been the longest standing tenants and part of the reason we stayed on so long is the awesome silence. Nobody else wants to live here so it's usually very quiet.

Our kitchen floor and bathroom are quite gross to look at because of the dirty, white tiles. We also have a serious mold problem. We were also told not to paint the apartment and that we could not have a dog but meanwhile other tenants have pets, so they are hypocrites and liars.

I also have to say that the power outages have been very inconvenient. I work from home and have had to deal with black outs, brown outs and power outages to fix bad wiring in the building. The main problem here is that they did not give us sufficient notice. They did post a sign in the main lobby but only a day in advance. Often they failed to post advance notice.

Another strange incident was the fact that for a couple of months we were receiving their mail in our mail slot. When it first happened, I thought it was a postal error so I simply gave them mail which seemed to be some kind of social assitance or gst cheque. However, it kept happening and so it became apparent that it was indeed a social services payment or pension. We began to wonder if this was intentional and they were simply using our mail box to receive mail that they did not want arriving at their own residence. I think they were trying to save money on renting their own postal box and they didn't want others to know they were receiving social assitance. Finally, after the third time, I asked why we were receiving their mail in our slot and that we did not want this happening and it stopped.

The land lady is young and is often accompanied by the mother who does not speak English. The father is always around doing repairs, it seems, and he cannot speak English either. In fact, he just grunts loudly and I guess this is how he communicates with the tenants. I found his grunting to be offensive, inappropriate and somewhat confusing. I often have to guess what he might be grunting about, and often have to phone the English speaking daughter, Jan Feng for a translation. Apparently, the brother, who does all the repairs, also seems to be hanging around the building quite often. He is approachable and a little more professional than the others.

If I had to rate the building out of 10, 1 being poor and 10 being excellent, I would say that it's a 4 out of 10. We are planning to move and are taking our time finding a proper apartment. We may also consider buying a house. Either way, I would not recommend this building to anyone.
It's full of problems big and small and there is very little support from the landlords.

I lived at 1842 East Pender for 1 year :( . There are so many things wrong in this building I wouldn't recommand anyone to RENT there for one the ant problem, the elevator, the building is very stink and dirty the mold smell in the unit I was in was so bad I slept with my patio door open during the winter months. To fix the mold problem it was just painted over and that lasted a few weeks . When my lease was up the landlord would not even come to the unit to do the inspection. I waited all day I

was there until 10pm and still no show, she wanted me to leave the unit unlocked and she would pick the key up the next day from the unit, but she kept 30.00 saying that the place was dirty when in fact the unit was cleaner when I left than it was when I first moved in. The scary part is that when the fire alarm would go off during the night the landlord would never show up to reset the alarm one night it rang for over 9 hours before anyone showed up. What was really bad was that someone put cardboard in the alarm to stop the fire alarm if there was to be a fire after that how would we know and how amny lives would be lost due to the fact the landlord would not come to the building to rest the alarm. Another thing is the wiring in the building, the smell of melting wires one night and than power outage for 4-5 days in the buildings no emergancy lights in the stairwell not even a sorry for the power outage lost all the food in the frezzer and froze our butts for these days didn't get a thing back from the landlord or owner after losing all our food due to the power outage. So for your safety NEVER RENT AT 1842 EAST PENDER

lived here for nearly 7 mths, it was 7mths too long! was horrible, agree with all previous posts, cockroaches & bed bugs, leaks, disruptive tenants, they never seriously deal with the problem, any problem for that matter, i don't know how they get away with it all, if you're reading this i highly recommend you keep looking, especially for the price, it a travesty that place.

Younes on 12/04/2010

i lived in this building in 1st floor, very dirty building,no managenemt at all.even the elevator they told me they will fix ...never happen after 9mounths.Cockroaches and ants everywhere
it smells so bad because of marajuana and cigarette odors.
the manager only care about collecting money...very cheap people.

J on 01/15/2010

I lived on the 2nd floor in this building for one year. Agree with the previous posters. My fridge broke down many times, freezer did not work. Cockroaches since the beginning, especially in the kitchen. The worse though, was when I moved away, I realized my mattress was infested with bed bugs. Something that was not the case previous to me living here. Made me super mad, considering my new place is 10x's better than this one. Overall, the building is very poorly maintained and in dire condition

we moved into this place with high hopes and should have moved out the next day to find our fridge was
broken, and then the rumours of bedbugs, and cockroaches everywhere. we have had numerous leaks(near floods), and constant cockroaches eveywhere, and the place smells horrible(mold they paint over!!!) and have now had a few fridges, the mold is horrible when it rains, when its not rainning the ceiling rain from the neighboors above us, for the price of rent and the conditions you have to deal

with i suggest keep looking. DO NOT MOVE IN TO THIS BUILDLING --- IT IS OVER PRICED FOR THE CONDITIONS YOU DEAL WITH!!!!

We lived in the building for 7 months. We only wanted the place for 6. We had planned a trip to Mexico for the end of April 2009, and we got back four days early because of the swine flu & the Canadian border\'s closing. The night we got back, there was a huge rain storm and the ceiling actually started leaking in two different places. Then we found out, we had cockroaches and silverfish.
The place smelt bad too. There was a bad painting job that covered up a water damage. The rent was ridicu

lous. The owner\'s couldn\'t care less. They didn\'t tell us that we overpaid, (because some of the money was paid by welfare) and the other half was being paid by cash. So we were unaware that they owed us money. As our landlords, they should be honest people. But over all, we had to leave, just because it was a disgusting building.

Severe cockroach and bedbug infestation on 2nd floor. Talked to other tenants and they report similar problems. Landlord has dealt with issue twice after complaints by sending 'handyman' in to spray the unit but has not fumigated building since I have been here (beginning of 2009). DO NOT MOVE INTO THIS BUILDING. Rent is way too high to have to deal with insects in your bed and food.